


let me count the ways you kill me

by greekdemigod



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE, Pride, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 00:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11279934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greekdemigod/pseuds/greekdemigod
Summary: When Tasha woke up this morning, many things were on her mind, but the idea to come out to her team hadn’t been one of them. Nevertheless, it was one of the first things she did when she got to the office.





	let me count the ways you kill me

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATIE! I think you're a great person, who deserves the world - and who deserves a 50k deep undercover slow burn fic, but alas, this is all I managed.  
> Hope you enjoy!

Tasha is dying. She always thought she’d die in the line of duty or a blaze of glory, but apparently, it’s embarrassment that’s going to do her in for good.

“Hold still, Tash.” Patterson tightens the grip on her chin to keep her steady and, with a little furrow of concentration, drags rainbow stripes onto her cheeks. The make-up is sticky against her skin, that’s already uncomfortably warm and tingly from the slight blush she’s trying to keep under control.

Hard to do when you’re dying though.

When Tasha woke up this morning, many things were on her mind, but the idea to come out to her team hadn’t been one of them. Nevertheless, it was one of the first things she did when she got to the office. By accident. And once she started sticking her foot into her mouth, she figured why not go all-in and get the rest of her leg in there too?

“There we go. Do you want to wear the unicorn horn, or should I?”

_Also, memo to self: never let Weller do the shopping ever again._

“Give me that.” Tasha grabs the diadem out of Patterson’s hands and slides it into her hair. Might as well make it glaringly obvious that she’s really fucking gay, since she’s already blabbed that secret to her entire team. And maybe some deity will take pity on her and just smite her down already.

“Hey, it’s okay. I—Tasha, look at me.” Patterson puts a hand on her cheek and makes her meet her gaze. Tasha is _dying_. “Nothing has changed. And _I_ think you’re incredibly brave.”

 _Nothing has changed_ , except Patterson keeps looking at her like she’s trying to recalibrate reality, Reade seemed properly pissed-off when they left the office, and Jane and Weller have barely spoken to her at all since she told them. _Everything_ has changed.

Why did she have to go and open her goddamn mouth again?

Their hands tangle together, fingers slotting between fingers in a gentle grip, and Patterson tugs her along. From a few blocks away, Tasha can already hear the noise of the crowd and the music of the parade. She has been to Pride a few times before, but never with just _one_ girl. A straight girl. That she has a crush on nevertheless.

Well, her day sure has been a trip so far, of course it would just continue that way.

The streets of New York have exploded with color. Dyed hair, bright outfits, rainbows everywhere. Confetti and glitter are thrown around—Tasha _knows_ she’ll still be washing the latter out of her hair a week from now. People of all genders, sexualities, colors, and sizes pass them by, some smiling easily, others nervous as hell.

Tasha can relate.

“Do you... want to hang out here for a bit?” Patterson asks it with seeming sincerity and a soft smile that hits Tasha right in the gut (it always does).

And the truth is, she would love to. She would love to just stroll through the parade and the parties with Patterson, see if she can find some of her friends to introduce her, just make a good time of it. But they _do_ have a job to do.

“No, let’s just go.”

When she got to work that morning, Patterson had been waiting on them with news of a new tattoo that had been decoded. Chatter on the darknet had led them to a bomb made of Helium — linking to the Helium atom tattoo on Jane’s body — that, deployed in a closed-off room, could choke up to two hundred people.

They had already been too late to intercept it at the auction, so now Tasha and Patterson are on their way to go snatch it away from the buyers.

Buyers that Tasha _knows_. Michael and Zyra, a straight couple in their fifties by now, who bought a bar a few years ago. The previous owner had passed away of cancer. That owner had been a lesbian. Tasha had frequented her bar during her college years.

Alice had become a close friend, almost an older sister to her.

After her death, she had gone a few more times. Although it was mostly still filled with lesbians, who wanted to keep their claim on this place as some sort of honor to Alice, it just hadn’t been the same for Tasha anymore.

She had thought the new owners had been nice enough though. You never really know, do you?

When Weller had been about to claim _another_ undercover job for him and Jane, Tasha had, instead, commenced the sticking-foot-in-mouth. Because a straight couple at a lesbian bar during Pride? That would just pull too much attention.

And so, she had spoken up, and in the process revealed that she knew the information because that bar had been her home turf during college, and she _knew_ the place was still claimed by the lesbian community because she was a part of that.

And _then_ , to make matters worse, when Weller amended it to Jane and Tasha, she had to speak up again. Of course. “That won’t work either. There will be too many people there that know I almost only date blondes.”

So yeah, she has been slowly dying all day.

The bar is pretty crowded and more people have spilled out into the seating area out back. Waitresses in cut-off denim shorts and pink tank tops carry drinks to costumers. Tasha quirks an eyebrow when she sees the would-be-terrorists are manning the bar themselves.

That’s going to make their job much easier. She is grateful for the first thing today to not complicate itself for her.

But first, to seem innocuous, she gets to buy Patterson a drink.

“The others are set up across the street in case we need them,” her friend whispers in her ear. Then she kisses her low on the cheek, almost the jaw, and squeezes her hand.

Oh right, they need to look like a couple. Yesterday she would have been able to do this almost effortlessly, although she was no less gay then. Patterson just hadn’t known yet then, wouldn’t have had to think about whether or not it meant more than it was.

“You’re thinking too much, Tasha.”

 _Time to get it together, Zapata_ , she tells herself, then puts an arm around Patterson’s waist and leads her to the counter. _Back to being confident and easy-going. Just forget you bared yourself and now you feel raw and exposed and vulnerable. You can do this._

She might not the best at giving herself pep talks.

“Hey, Zyra,” she greets the woman. Despite her hair greying at the temples, the woman is still a _looker_. How many of her friends has she heard griping about the unfairness of such a fine woman being straight (and married) on these very stools? It seems like a lifetime ago. “You might not remember me but—”

“Are you kidding me? I could never forget how you broke the darts record in style and made my husband cry. Hey Tasha. Who’s the lady?”

Tasha smiles as she introduces Patterson as her girlfriend, then asks for rum colas they probably won’t get to drink anyway. But at least she’s bought a drink for a pretty girl.

They’re standing much closer than they usually do. Patterson’s hip presses back into her own; the warmth and weight of her against her side is comforting and tantalizing at the same time. She secures her grip around the blonde and leans her head on her shoulder, to whisper to her softly, “They’ve always been really kind allies. It’s hard to imagine them... you know.”

“I’m sorry that they are.”

She could forget all about the whole world still spinning on with Patterson in her arms like this. It’s dangerous that she already does a little despite the severity of their mission.

With rum colas in hand that they don’t get to drink because they’re on the job, even though it’s creeping towards late afternoon already, Tasha and Patterson mingle, to disappear in a mob of gay girls and to look for the diversion that will allow them to sneak upstairs without being noticed.

At first, Tasha is tense, everything she does thought about and fretted about, worrying that Patterson will see something in it. It has become exhausting to be inside her own mind, and once more she hates herself for telling everyone. Not only is there a kind of moment for such conversations that she entirely missed the mark on, but also, why _now_? Why in the middle of their season of tattoo missions? This is the most important thing the Bureau has ever done and she’s supposed to be on her A-game.

Gay panic Tasha is not A-game Tasha.

But the few discreet sips she has taken and Patterson taking some of the lead makes it all easier, until holding hands and smiling fondly at each other and kissing each other’s cheek has become natural. They lean into their truths when talking to others, because it is easier than trying to come up with a whole lie.

She gets to gush about Patterson, about how nice and kind and smart and gentle she is, how she’s the best at their ‘computer engineering firm’. She gets to come up with a fake first date, a name for the fictional cat they have together. But when talking about when she first realized she loved Patterson, she leans maybe a little bit too much into the truth.

Tasha is pretty sure Patterson is onto her when suddenly the blonde’s looking at her sternly, but — to her vast fucking relief — their window of opportunity has arrived, in the form of a mosh pit of some sorts. Or maybe it’s a group hug? Tasha can’t quite tell, but it looks like trouble waiting to happen.

A splashed drink here, an elbow in the side or a shove there, and suddenly this group of mismatched women gets rowdy.

Michael steps away to come see what’s happening. Then Zyra turns away from them to help a customer, and off they go. Her heart skips a beat when they close the door behind them again. The din of the crowd is still easy to hear on this side, but slightly muffled.

“I can’t believe how easy that was,” Patterson remarks idly as she steps around a crate of beers and makes her way over to the stairs that lead up to the penthouse on the first floor. Tasha looks around to check for sensors or cameras, but there seem to be none. Before Patterson can get too far ahead, she hurries on after her.

The apartment looks completely different from when Alice lived there, but the basic lay-out is still the same. While Patterson checks the office, Tasha goes through the pantry and the kitchen, then the living room, then the bedroom. The device is nowhere to be found.

“I found the address of a storage unit!” Patterson shouts at the same time as the door opens and Zyra steps in, holding up a gun.

Of course, something can’t go easy today. She really should have known better.

She can’t make a grab for the gun that’s strapped to her thigh underneath her dress. There’s nowhere to run or hide. They’re well and truly screwed, but for the first time today she has a clear and sharp mind. Something about danger and imminent death will do that for you.

“Tell your pretty girlfriend to get in here, Tasha.”

“Yeah, no frickin’ way.” She’ll die before she lets anything happen to Patterson. If she scuffles with Zyra long enough, maybe Patterson will have time enough to get away.

Very heroic. Very romantic. Sounds like the way to go.

“Where’s _your_ better half?”

Steps in the office. Patterson moving? _Why? Goddamnit, why?_ Zyra turns and Tasha jumps. They go down in a heap of limbs, the gun hard and cold between them. If she shoots now, she’s dead, Tasha knows. It fills her with so much adrenaline that time seems to almost slow down. She ducks aside just in time, the bullet tears through the fabric of her dress and cuts a line across her hip but at least it doesn’t drill itself in her soft belly.

“Tasha, they’re coming!”

She barely registers it as she tries to kick the gun out of Zyra’s hand, then kicks again to break the goddamn wrist because it will keep her from firing just as much. The back of her hand is smeared with rainbow colors where she must’ve rubbed it against her face.

“Step away from my girlfriend, you bitch.” Tasha looks up at a positively livid-looking Patterson, blue eyes ablaze, her FBI-sanctioned gun in steadfast hands.

The _they_ are their team, which she’d somehow forgotten were close-by for exactly this reason. They have Michael already trussed up in handcuffs and Zyra soon follows, while Patterson kneels next to her and presses a bit of cloth to her bleeding side.

“You were distracted.”

No point in denying what has been pretty fucking clear all day. “Yeah.”

She expects a reprimand, or concern, not the, “Did you know I’m bisexual?” that follows.

Chuckling in disbelief, at the statement or the timing of it she’s not sure, Tasha shakes her head.

Local police comes to clear out the bar and the FBI bags all the evidence from the office to keep Michael and Zyra locked up for a good, long time. An ambulance arrives on the scene when Tasha starts to feel dizzy with the pain and blood loss she is so desperately trying to keep at bay.

Pain is a good mechanism to keep pesky thoughts out of her mind, too.

“When this good gentleman is done checking out that cut,” Patterson says as she pulls the unicorn horn diadem off her head and smiles at it, “you should ask me out on a real date. And we can talk all about our sexualities properly, yeah?”

Tasha looks at the nurse to make sure she didn't just imagine that and he grins sheepishly at her.

Well damn. Maybe not the worst day ever after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
